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itart  iltbrar^  ^jeijsociation 

PUBLISHING    BOARD 

LIBRARY  TRACT,  No.  x. 


WHY  DO  WE  NEED  A  PUBLIC 
LIBRARY 


EXTRACTS  FROM  PAPERS 
AND  ADDRESSES 


COMPILED   BY  A   COMMITTEE   OF   THE 
AMERICAN  LIBRARY  ASSOCIATION 


PUBLISHED   FOR   THE 

^tmerican  3tibrarp  ^lef^cciatton 

BY 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &   COMPANY'.   BOSTON 

1902 


PUBLICATIONS  OF   THE 

American  iCiftrarp  assoctation 

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american  Ltbrat^  ajsjsociatton 

PUBLISHING    BOARD 

LIBRARY  TRACT,  No.  i. 

WHY  DO  WE  NEED  A  PUBLIC 
LIBRARY 


EXTRACTS  FROM  PAPERS 
AND  ADDRESSES 


COMPILED  BY  A   COMMITTEE   OF   THE 
AMERICAN  LIBRARY  ASSOCIATION 


PUBLISHED   FOR   THE 

3lmmcan  Hiftrarp  ^l^^ociation 

BY 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  COMPANY,  BOSTON 
1902 


WHY  DO   WE  NEED  A  PUBLIC 
LIBRARY  ? 


WHAT  A  FREE  LIBRARY  DOES  FOR   A  COUNTRY  TOWN. 

Connecticut  Public  Library  Document,  1895. 

1.  It  keeps  boys  at  home  in  the  evening  by  giving  them 
well-written  stories  of  adventure. 

2.  It  gives  teachers  and  pupils  interesting  books  to  aid 
their  school  work  in  history  and  geography,  and  makes 
better  citizens  of  them  by  enlarging  their  knowledge  of 
their  country  and  its  growth. 

3.  It  provides  books  on  the  care  of  children  and  animals, 
cookery  and  housekeeping,  building  and  gardening,  and 
teaches  young  readers  how  to  make  simple  dynamos,  tele- 
phones, and  other  machines. 

4.  It  helps  clubs  that  are  studying  history,  literature,  or 
life  in  other  countries,  and  tlu-ows  light  upon  Sunday- 
school  lessons. 

5.  It  furnishes  books  of  selections  for  reading  aloud, 
suggestions  for  entertainments  and  home  amusements,  and 
hints  on  correct  speech  and  good  manners. 

6.  It  teaches  the  names  and  habits  of  the  plants,  birds, 
and  insects  of  the  neighborhood,  and  the  differences  in  soil 
and  rocks. 

7.  It  teUs  the  story  of  the  town  from  its  settlement,  and 
keeps  a  record  of  all  important  events  in  its  history. 

8.  It  offers  pleasant  and  wholesome  stories  to  readers  of 
all  ages. 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARY? 


THE  MISSION  OF  THE  BOOK. 

J.  N.  Larned. 

There  are  people  who  may  assent  to  all  that  is  said  of 
education  in  the  life-lasting  view  of  it,  who  will  deny  that 
there  is  a  question  in  it  of  books.  "  We,"  they  say,  "  find 
more  for  our  instruction  in  life  than  in  books.  The  reality 
of  things  interests  us  more  and  teaches  us  more  than  the 
report  and  description  of  them  by  others.  We  study  men 
among  men  and  God's  works  in  the  midst  of  them.  We  pre- 
fer to  take  knowledge  at  first  hand,  from  nature  and  from 
society,  rather  than  second-handedly,  out  of  a  printed  page. 
Your  book  wisdom  is  from  the  closet  and  for  closet  use. 
It  is  not  the  kind  needed  in  a  busy  and  breezy  world.'.' 
Well,  there  is  a  half-truth  in  this  which  must  not  be  ignored. 
To  make  everything  of  books  in  the  development  of  men  and 
women  is  a  greater  mistake  perhaps  than  to  make  nothing 
of  them.  For  life  has  teachings,  and  nature  out-of-doors 
has  teachings,  for  which  no  man,  if  he  misses  them,  can 
find  compensation  in  books.  We  can  say  that,  frankly,  to 
the  contemner. of  books,  and  we  yield  no  ground  in  doing 
so  ;  for  then  we  turn  upon  him  and  say  :  "  Your  life,  sir,  to 
which  you  look  for  all  the  enlightenment  of  soul  and  mind 
that  you  receive,  is  a  brief  span  of  a  few  tens  of  years ; 
the  circle  of  human  acquaintance  in  which  you  are  satisfied 
to  make  your  whole  study  of  mankind  is  a  little  company 
of  a  few  hundred  men  and  women,  at  the  most ;  the  natural 
world  from  which  you  think  to  take  sufficient  lessons  with 
your  unassisted  eyes  is  made  up  of  some  few  bits  of  city 
streets  and  country  lanes  and  seaside  sands.  What  can 
you,  sir,  know  of  life,  compared  with  the  man  who  has  had 
equal  years  of  breath  and  consciousness  with  you,  and  who 
puts  with  that  experience  some  large,  wide  knowledge  of 
forty  centuries  of  human  history  in  the  whole  round  world 
besides  ?     What   can   you  know  of   mankind  and  human 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A  PUBLIC   LIBRARY*  3 

nature  compared  with  the  man  who  meets  and  talks  with 
as  many  of  his  neighbors  in  the  flesh  as  yourself  and  who, 
beyond  that,  has  companionship  and  communion  of  mind 
with  the  kingly  and  queenly  ones  of  all  the  generations 
that  are  dead  ?  What  can  you  learn  from  nature  compared 
with  him  who  has  Darwin  and  Dana  and  Huxley  and 
Tyndall  and  Gray  for  his  tutors  when  he  walks  abroad,  and 
who,  besides  the  home-rambling  which  he  shares  with  you, 
can  go  bird-watching  with  John  Burroughs  up  and  down  the 
Atlantic  States,  or  roaming  with  Thoreau  in  Maine  woods, 
or  strolling  with  Richard  Jefferies  in  English  lanes  and 
fields  ?  " 

Truth  is,  the  bookless  man  does  not  understand  his  own 
loss.  He  does  not  know  the  leanness  in  wliich  his  mind  is 
kept  by  want  of  the  food  which  he  rejects.  He  does  not 
know  what  starving  of  imagination  and  of  thought  he  has 
inflicted  upon  himself.  He  has  suffered  his  interest  in  the 
things  which  make  up  God's  knowable  universe  to  shrink 
until  it  reaches  no  farther  than  his  eyes  can  see  and  his  ears 
can  hear.  The  books  which  he  scorns  are  the  telescopes 
and  reflectors  and  reverberators  of  our  intellectual  life, 
holding  in  themselves  a  hundred  magical  powers  for  the 
overcoming  of  space  and  time,  and  for  giving  the  range 
of  knowledge  which  belongs  to  a  really  cultivated  mind. 
There  is  no  equal  substitute  for  them.  There  is  nothing 
else  which  will  so  break  for  us  the  poor  hobble  of  everyday 
sights  and  sounds  and  habits  and  tasks,  by  which  our 
thinking  and  feeling  are  naturally  tethered  to  a  Uttle  worn 
round. 

THE  FUTTJKE  OF  THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY. 

/.  N.  Lamed. 

If  it  has  been  our  privilege  to  see,  and  for  some  in  our 
circle  to  bear  a  part  in,  the  beginnings  of  the  active  educa- 
tional work  of  the  libraries,  I  am  persuaded  that  it  is  only 


4  WHY  no    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC   LIBRARY f 

the  beginnings  we  have  witnessed  as  yet.  I  am  jiersuaded 
that  the  public  library  of  the  future  will  transcend  our 
dreams  in  its  penetrating  influence.  Consider  for  a  moment 
what  it  is,  and  what  it  offers  to  the  energies  of  education 
which  a  desperate  necessity  is  awakening  and  organizing 
in  the  world  !  It  is  a  store,  a  reservoir,  of  the  new  know- 
ledge of  the  latest  day  and  the  ripened  wisdom  of  the  long 
past.  To  carry  into  the  memory  and  into  the  thought  of 
all  the  people  who  surround  it,  in  a  town,  even  some  little 
part  of  what  it  holds  of  instructed  reasoning  and  instructed 
feeling,  would  be  to  civilize  that  community  beyond  the 
highest  experience  of  civilization  that  mankind  has  yet 
attained  to.  There  is  nothing  that  stands  equally  beside  it 
as  a  possible  agent  of  common  culture.  It  is  the  one 
fountain  of  intellectual  hf e  which  cannot  be  exhausted ; 
which  need  not  be  channeled  for  any  fortunate  few ;  which 
can  be  generously  led  to  the  filling  of  every  cup,  of  every 
capacity  for  old  or  young.  There  is  little  in  it  to  tempt 
the  befouling  hand  of  the  politician,  and  it  offers  no  gain 
to  the  mercantile  adventurer.  For  those  who  serve  it  on 
behalf  of  the  public  there  are  few  allurements  of  money 
or  fame.  Its  vast  powers  for  good  are  so  little  exposed  to 
seduction  or  corruption  that  it  seems  to  give  jiromises  for 
the  future  which  are  safer  and  surer  than  any  others  that 
society  can  build  hopes  upon. 

THE  PUBLIC  LIBRAKY  A  CIVIC  CENTRE. 

W.  E.  Foster.  ,^ 

In  more  than  one  locality  the  local  public  library  has 
come  to  be  recognized  as  the  natural  local  centre  of  the  com- 
munity, around  which  revolve  the  local  studies,  the  local 
industries,  and  all  the  various  local  interests  of  the  town 
or  village.  Here,  for  instance,  is  the  home  of  the  local 
historical  or  antiquarian  society ;  here  also  is  the  home 
of  the  local  camera  club ;  of  the  natural  history  society  ; 


WHY  DO    WE  NEED  A  PUBLIC  LIBRARY?  O 

of  the  schoolmasters'  club,  etc.  Why  is  this  ?  It  is  be- 
cause those  in  charge  of  the  library  have  so  thorouglily 
realized  the  fact  that  in  a  community  the  interests  of  all  are 
the  interests  of  each,  and  that  while  this  is  true  of  other 
institutions  as  related  to  each  other, —  of  the  natural  history 
museum,  for  instance,  as  related  to  the  public  schools,  —  yet 
there  is  no  one  of  them  on  which  the  lines  of  interest  so  in- 
variably converge  from  all  the  others  —  as  "  all  roads  lead 
to  Rome." 

There  is  one  more  point  of  view  on  which  I  woidd  like 
to  touch  briefly ;  namely,  the  steps  preceding  the  opening  of 
a  pubUc  library.  How  shall  we  best  develop  interest  in  the 
community  under  these  conditions  ?  Here  the  question  is 
hpw  most  effectively  to  place  before  the  community  the 
possibilities  of  such  an  institution,  still  largely  an  unknown 
institution  to  the  most  of  the  community.  Obviously,  in 
thus  proceeding  from  the  known  to  the  unknown  all  possi- 
ble agencies  should  be  utilized  which  may  tend  to  make  the 
matter  real  to  the  people.  If  a  pubUc  meeting  is  to  be 
held,  any  speaker  from  abroad  who  is  to  address  it  should 
be  one  who  has  been  in  vital  contact  with  the  beneficent 
influences  of  a  well-directed  public  Hbrary,  and  can  speak 
feelingly  and  from  first-hand  experience  with  it.  Both 
"  sides  "  of  this  experience,  so  to  speak,  shoidd  be  rejire- 
sented.  That  is  to  say,  it  will  be  well  to  hear,  not  only 
from  the  librarian  of  a  library  which  has  been  making  a 
place  for  itself  in  the  affections  of  a  community,  but  from 
some  beneficiary  of  the  library's  good  offices, — some  teacher, 
for  instance,  who  can  speak  from  experience,  not  merely  of 
what  the  library  has  aimed  to  accomplish,  but  of  what  it 
actually  has  accomplished  in  his  own  experience  time  and 
time  again.  In  every  such  community,  moreover,  where 
no  pubUc  library  has  yet  been  established,  there  are  likely 
to  be  some  persons,  whether  teachers  or  others,  who,  hav- 
ing been  accustomed  elsewhere  to  the  benefits  of  a  public 
library,  can  speak  feelingly  of  the  deprivation  experienced 


6  WHY  BO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARY T 

on  coming  to  a  new  community  where  none  exists.  Such 
public-spirited  citizens  will  be  among  the  best  and  most 
effective  missionaries  of  the  new  movement.  Your  com- 
munity, moreover,  wiU  constitute  a  rather  marked  excep- 
tion to  communities  generally  if  you  do  not  find  the  local 
press  ready  and  willing  to  cooperate  in  all  these  measures, 
and  to  open  its  columns  to  testimonies  such  as  I  have  in- 
stanced. 

Lastly,  care  and  judicious  attention  wiU  be  needed  when 
the  library  is  fairly  opened  and  during  the  first  few  months 
of  its  operation,  until,  in  short,  it  is  well  past  what  may  be 
called  the  "  broken  reed  and  smoking  flax  "  period.  If  I 
were  to  be  asked  what  is  the  most  frequent  occasion  for 
failure  or  flagging  interest  here,  I  should  reply  :  "  The  too 
common  practice  of  building  and  equipping  the  library  first, 
and  engaging  the  librarian  second  ;  "  and  thus  relying  upon 
the  books,  unaided,  to  present  their  effective  influence  upon 
the  community.  No  mistake  could  be  greater,  as  may  be 
seen  from  those  instances  in  which  the  well-directed  effec- 
tiveness of  the  librarian's  personality  has  counted  for  so 
much.  At  the  outset,  when  novelty  is  a  leading  motive, 
much  reliance  may  appropriately  be  had  on  the  fresh  inter- 
est of  current  periodicals,  and  of  the  latest  published  books  ; 
but  a  library  which  should  remain  indefinitely  in  this  stage, 
as  a  chi-onic  condition,  would  be  Uke  a  cliild  who  has  grown 
into  manhood  without  abandoning  his  childish  toys.  Nov- 
elty, recreation,  serviceableness,  these  thi-ee,  —  aU  these  are 
legitimate  and  appropriate  aims  at  some  time  in  the  de- 
velopment of  a  public  library  ;  but  the  third  has  a  potency 
in  establishing  the  library  in  the  deep  affections  of  the  com- 
munity to  which  the  other  two  can  never  approach.  At 
the  end  of  ten  years  it  will  not  be  so  much  the  number  of 
people  whom  the  library's  books  have  amused,  as  those 
who  have  found  it  capable  of  rendering  them  a  real  and 
most  appreciated  service,  to  which  its  officers  wiU  look  with 
pleasure  and  satisfaction. 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC   LIBRAE Vt 


BOOKS  AND  THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY. 

James  Russell  Lowell,   1885. 

The  opening  of  a  free  public  library,  then,  is  a  most  im- 
portant event  in  the  history  of  any  town.  A  college  train- 
ing is  an  excellent  thing ;  but,  after  all,  the  better  part  of 
every  man's  education  is  that  which  he  gives  himself,  and  it 
is  for  this  that  a  good  library  should  furnish  the  oppor- 
tunity and  the  means.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  our 
public  schools  undertook  to  teach  too  much,  and  that  the 
older  system,  which  taught  merely  the  three  R's,  and 
taught  them  well,  leaving  natural  selection  to  decide  who 
should  go  farther,  was  the  better.  However  this  may  be, 
all  that  is  primarily  needful  in  order  to  use  a  library  is  the 
ability  to  read.  I  say  primarily,  for  there  must  also  be  the 
inclination,  and  after  that,  some  guidance  in  reading  well. 
Formerly  the  duty  of  a  librarian  was  considered  too  much 
that  of  a  watchdog,  to  keep  people  as  much  as  possible 
away  from  the  books,  and  to  hand  these  over  to  his  suc- 
cessor as  little  worn  by  use  as  he  could.  Librarians  now, 
it  is  pleasant  to  see,  have  a  different  notion  of  their  trust, 
and  are  in  the  habit  of  preparing,  for  the  direction  of  the 
inexperienced,  lists  of  such  books  as  they  think  best  worth 
reading.  Cataloguing  has  also,  thanks  in  great  measure  to 
American  librarians,  become  a  science,  and  catalogues,  ceas- 
ing to  be  labyrinths  without  a  clue,  are  furnished  with  fin- 
ger-posts at  every  turn.  Subject  catalogues  again  save  the 
beginner  a  vast  deal  of  time  and  trouble  by  supplying  him 
for  nothing  with  one  at  least  of  the  results  of  thorough 
scholarship,  the  knowing  where  to  look  for  what  he  wants. 
I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  there  is  or  can  be  any  short  cut 
to  learning,  but  that  there  may  be,  and  is,  such  a  short  cut 
to  information  that  will  make  learning  more  easily  acces- 
sible. 

But  have  you  ever  rightly  considered  what    the   mere 


8  WHY  BO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARYf 

ability  to  read  means  ?  That  it  is  the  key  which  admits  us 
to  the  whole  world  of  thought  and  fancy  and  imagination  ; 
to  the  company  of  saint  and  sage,  of  the  wisest  and  the  witti- 
est at  their  wisest  and  wittiest  moment  ?  That  it  enables  us 
to  see  with  the  keenest  eyes,  hear  with  the  finest  ears,  and 
listen  to  the  sweetest  voices  of  all  time  ?  More  than  that, 
it  annihilates  time  and  space  for  us  ;  it  revives  for  us  without 
a  miracle  the  Age  of  Wonder,  endowing  us  with  the  shoes  of 
swiftness  and  the  cap  of  darkness,  so  that  we  walk  invisible 
like  fern-seed,  and  witness  unharmed  the  plague  at  Athens 
or  Florence  or  London  ;  accompany  Caesar  on  his  marches, 
or  look  in  on  Catiline  in  council  with  his  fellow-conspira- 
tors, or  Guy  Fawkes  in  the  cellar  of  St.  Stejjhen's.  We 
often  hear  of  people  who  will  descend  to  any  servihty,  sub- 
mit to  any  insult,  for  the  sake  of  getting  themselves  or  their 
children  into  what  is  euphemistically  called  good  society. 
Did  it  ever  occur  to  them  that  there  is  a  select  society  of 
aU  the  centuries  to  which  they  and  theirs  can  be  admitted 
for  the  asking,  a  society,  too,  which  will  not  involve  them 
in  ruinous  expense,  and  still  more  ruinous  waste  of  time 
and  health  and  faculties  ?  .  .  . 

One  is  sometimes  asked  by  young  people  to  recommend  a 
course  of  reading.  My  advice  would  be  that  they  should 
confine  themselves  to  the  supreme  books  in  whatever  lit- 
erature, or  still  better  to  choose  some  one  great  author,  and 
make  themselves  thoroughly  familiar  with  him.  For,  as  all 
roads  lead  to  Rome,  so  do  they  likewise  lead  away  from 
it,  and  you  will  find  that,  in  order  to  understand  perfectly 
and  weigh  exactly  any  vital  piece  of  literaijire,  you  will 
be  gradually  and  pleasantly  persuaded  to  excursions  and 
explorations  of  which  you  little  dreamed  when  you  began, 
and  will  find  yourselves  scholars  before  you  are  aware. 
For  remember  that  there  is  nothing  less  profitable  than 
scholarship  for  the  mere  sake  of  scholarship,  nor  anything 
more  wearisome  in  the  attainment.  But  the  moment  you 
have  a  definite  aim,  attention  is  quickened,  the  mother  of 


WHY  BO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARY?  9 

memory,  and  all  that  you  acquire  gi'oups  and  arranges 
itself  in  an  order  that  is  lucid,  because  everywhere  and 
always  it  is  in  intelligent  relation  to  a  central  object  of  con- 
stant and  growing  interest.  This  method  also  forces  upon 
us  the  necessity  of  thinking,  which  is,  after  all,  the  highest 
result  of  all  education.  For  what  we  want  is  not  learn- 
ing, but  knowledge ;  that  is,  the  power  to  make  learning 
answer  its  true  end  as  a  quickener  of  intelligence  and  a 
widener  of  our  intellectual  sympathies.  ,  .  . 

I  have  been  speaking  of  such  books  as  should  be  chosen 
for  profitable  reading.  A  public  library,  of  course,  must 
be  far  wider  in  its  scope.  It  shoidd  contain  something  for 
all  tastes,  as  well  as  the  material  for  a  thorough  grounding 
in  all  branches  of  knowledge.  It  should  be  rich  in  books 
of  reference,  in  encycloptedias,  where  one  may  learn  without 
cost  of  research  what  things  are  generally  known.  For  it  is 
far  more  useful  to  know  these  than  to  know  those  that  are 
7iot  generally  known.  Not  to  know  them  is  the  defect  of 
those  half -trained  and  therefore  hasty  men  who  find  a  mare's 
nest  on  every  branch  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  A  library 
should  contain  ample  stores  of  history,  which,  if  it  do  not 
always  deserve  the  pompous  title  which  Bolingbroke  gave  it, 
of  philosophy  teaching  by  example,  certainly  teaches  many 
things  profitable  for  us  to  know  and  lay  to  heart ;  teaches, 
among  other  things,  how  much  of  the  present  is  still  held  in 
mortmain  by  the  past ;  teaches  that,  if  there  be  no  control- 
ling purpose,  there  is,  at  least,  a  sternly  logical  sequence  in 
human  affairs,  and  that  chance  has  but  a  trifling  dominion 
over  them  ;  teaches  why  things  are  and  must  be  so  and  not 
otherwise  ;  .  .  .  teaches,  perhaps,  more  than  anything  else, 
the  value  of  personal  character  as  a  chief  factor  in  what  used 
to  be  called  destiny,  for  that  cause  is  strong  which  has  not 
a  multitude  but  one  strong  man  behind  it.  History  is,  in- 
deed, mainly  the  biography  of  a  few  imperial  men,  and 
forces  home  upon  us  the  useful  lesson  how  infinitesimally 
important   our   own   private    affairs   are    to   the   universe 


10  WHY  BO    WE  NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARY f 

in  general.  History  is  clarified  experience,  and  yet  how 
little  do  men  profit  by  it ;  nay,  how  should  we  expect  it 
of  those  who  so  seldom  are  taught  anything  by  their  own ! 
Delusions,  especially  economical  delusions,  seem  the  only 
things  that  have  any  chance  of  an  earthly  immortality.  I 
would  have  plenty  of  biography.  It  is  no  insignificant 
fact  that  eminent  men  have  always  loved  their  Plutarch, 
since  example,  whether  for  emulation  or  avoidance,  is  never 
so  poignant  as  when  presented  to  us  in  a  striking  personality. 
Autobiographies  are  also  instructive  reading  to  the  student 
of  human  nature,  though  generally  written  by  men  who 
were  more  interesting  to  themselves  than  to  their  fellow- 
men.  I  have  been  told  that  Emerson  and  George  Eliot 
agreed  in  thinking  Rousseau's  "  Confessions  "  the  most 
interesting  book  they  had  ever  read. 

A  public  library  should  also  have  many  and  full  shelves 
of  political  economy,  for  the  dismal  science,  as  Carlyle 
called  it,  if  it  prove  nothing  else,  wiU  go  far  towards  prov- 
ing that  theory  is  the  bird  in  the  bush,  though  she  sing 
more  sweetly  than  the  nightingale,  and  that  the  millennium 
will  not  hasten  its  coming  in  deference  to  the  most  convin- 
cing string  of  resolutions  that  were  ever  unanimously 
adopted  in  public  meeting.  It  likewise  induces  in  us  a 
profound  and  wholesome  distrust  of  social  panaceas. 

I  would  have  a  public  library  abundant  in  translations 
of  the  best  books  in  all  languages,  for,  though  no  work  of 
genius  can  be  adequately  translated,  because  every  word  of 
it  is  permeated  with  what  Milton  calls  "  the  precious  life- 
blood  of  a  master  spirit,"  which  cannot  be  ti^finsfused  into 
the  veins  of  the  best  translation,  yet  some  acquaintance 
with  foi'eign  and  ancient  literatures  has  the  liberalizing 
effect  of  foreign  travel.  He  who  travels  by  translation 
travels  more  hastily  and  superficially,  but  brings  home  some- 
thing that  is  worth  having,  nevertheless.  Translations 
projierly  used,  by  shortening  the  labor  of  acquisition,  add 
as  many  years  to  our  lives  as  they  subtract  from  the  pro- 
cesses of  our  education.  .  .  . 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A  PUBLIC  LIBRARY f        11 

In  such  a  library  the  sciences  should  be  fully  represented, 
that  men  may  at  least  learn  to  know  in  what  a  marvellous 
museum  they  hve,  what  a  wonder-worker  is  giving  them  an 
exhibition  daily  for  nothing.  Nor  let  Art  be  forgotten  in 
all  its  many  forms,  not  as  the  antithesis  of  Science,  but  as 
her  elder  or  fairer  sister,  whom  we  love  all  the  more  that 
her  usefulness  cannot  be  demonstrated  in  dollars  and  cents. 
I  should  be  thankful  if  every  day-laborer  among  us  could 
have  his  mind  illumined,  as  those  of  Athens  and  of  Flor- 
ence had,  with  some  image  of  what  is  best  in  architecture, 
painting,  and  sculpture,  to  train  his  crude  perceptions  and 
perhaps  call  out  latent  facilities.  I  should  like  to  see  the 
woi'ks  of  Ruskin  within  the  reach  of  every  artisan  among 
us.  For  I  hope  some  day  that  the  delicacy  of  touch  and 
accuracy  of  eye  that  have  made  our  mechanics  in  some 
departments  the  best  in  the  world  may  give  us  the  same 
supremacy  in  works  of  wider  range  and  more  purely  ideal 
scope. 

Voyages  and  travels  I  would  also  have,  good  store,  es- 
pecially the  earlier,  when  the  world  was  fresh  and  unhack- 
neyed and  men  saw  things  invisible  to  the  modern  eye. 
Tliey  are  fast-sailing  ships  to  waft  away  from  present 
trouble  to  the  Fortunate  Isles. 

To  wash  down  the  drier  morsels  that  every  library  must 
necessarily  offer  at  its  board,  let  there  be  plenty  of  imagina- 
tive literature,  and  let  its  range  be  not  too  narrow  to  stretch 
from  Dante  to  the  elder  Dumas.  The  world  of  the  imagi- 
nation is  not  the  world  of  abstraction  and  nonentity,  as  some 
conceive,  but  a  world  formed  out  of  chaos  by  a  sense  of 
the  beauty  that  is  in  man  and  the  earth  on  which  he  dwells. 
It  is  the  realm  of  Might-be,  our  haven  of  refuge  from 
the  shortcomings  and  disillusions  of  life.  It  is,  to  quote 
Spenser,  who  knew  it  well, —  "  the  world's  sweet  inn  from 
care  and  wearisome  turmoil."  Do  we  believe,  then,  that 
God  gave  us  in  mockery  this  splendid  faculty  of  sympathy 
with  things  that  are  a  joy  forever  ?     For  my  part,  I  believe 


12         WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARYf 

that  the  love  and  study  of  works  of  imagination  is  of  prao 
tical  utility  in  a  country  so  profoundly  material  (or,  as  we 
like  to  call  it,  practical)  in  its  leading  tendencies  as  ours. 
The  hunger  after  purely  intellectual  delights,  the  content 
with  ideal  possessions,  cannot  but  be  good  for  us  in  main- 
taining a  wholesome  balance  of  the  character  and  of  the 
faculties.  I  for  one  shall  never  be  persuaded  that  Shake- 
speare left  a  less  useful  legacy  to  his  countrymen  than 
Watt.  We  hold  aU  the  deepest,  all  the  highest  satisfac- 
tions of  life  as  tenants  of  imagination.  Nature  will  keep 
up  the  supply  of  what  are  called  hardheaded  people  with- 
out our  help,  and,  if  it  come  to  that,  there  are  other  as 
good  uses  for  heads  as  at  the  end  of  battering-rams. 

I  know  that  there  are  many  excellent  people  who  object 
to  the  reading  of  novels  as  a  waste  of  time,  if  not  as  other- 
wise harmful.  But  I  think  they  are  trying  to  outwit 
nature,  who  is  sm-e  to  prove  cunninger  than  they.  Look  at 
children.  One  boy  shall  want  a  chest  of  tools,  and  one  a 
book,  and  of  those  who  want  books  one  shall  ask  for  a  bot- 
any, another  for  a  romance.  They  will  be  sure  to  get 
what  they  want,  and  we  are  doing  a  grave  wrong  to  their 
morals  by  driving  them  to  do  things  on  the  sly,  to  steal 
that  food  which  their  constitution  craves  and  which  is 
wholesome  for  them,  instead  of  having  it  freely  and  frankly 
given  them  as  the  wisest  possible  diet.  If  we  cannot  make 
a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear,  so  neither  can  we  hope  to 
succeed  with  the  opposite  experiment.  But  we  may  spoil 
the  silk  for  its  legitimate  uses.  I  can  conceive  of  no 
healthier  reading  for  a  boy,  or  girl  either,  than,  Scott's  nov- 
els, or  Cooper's,  to  speak  only  of  the  dead.  I  have  found 
them  very  good  reading  at  least  for  one  young  man,  for 
one  middle-aged  man,  and  for  one  who  is  growing  old. 
No,  no  —  banish  the  "  Antiquary,"  banish  "  Leather  Stock- 
ing," and  banish  all  the  world!  Let  us  not  go  about  to 
make  life  duller  than  it  is.  .  .  . 

I  have  great  pleasure  in  believing  that  the  custom  of 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC   LIBRAE}'?         13 

giving  away  money  during  their  lifetime  (and  there  is 
nothing  harder  for  most  men  to  part  with,  excei)t  preju- 
dice) is  more  common  with  Americans  than  witli  any  other 
people.  It  is  a  still  greater  pleasure  to  see  that  the  favorite 
direction  of  their  beneficence  is  towards  the  founding  of 
colleges  and  libraries.  My  observation  has  led  me  to  be- 
lieve that  there  is  no  country  in  which  wealth  is  so  sensible 
of  its  obligations  as  our  own.  And  as  most  of  our  rich 
men  have  risen  from  the  ranks,  may  we  not  fairly  attribute 
this  sympathy  with  their  kind  to  the  benign  influence  of 
democracy  rightly  understood  ?  .  .  .  Tliis  is  the  healthy  side 
of  that  good  nature  which  democracy  tends  to  foster,  and 
which  is  so  often  harmful  when  it  has  its  root  in  indolence 
or  indifference  ;  especially  harnif id  where  our  public  affairs 
are  concerned,  and  where  it  is  easiest,  because  there  we  are 
giving  away  what  belongs  to  other  people.  In  tliis  countiy 
it  is  as  laudably  easy  to  procure  signatures  to  a  subscription 
paper  as  it  is  shamefully  so  to  obtain  them  for  certificates  of 
character  and  recommendations  to  office.  And  is  not  tliis 
public  spirit  a  national  evolution  from  that  frame  of  mind  in 
which  New  England  was  colonized,  and  which  found  expres- 
sion in  these  grave  words  of  Robinson  and  Brewster  :  "  We 
are  knit  together  as  a  body  in  a  most  strict  and  sacred  bond 
and  covenant  of  the  Lord,  of  the  violation  of  wliich  we 
make  great  conscience,  and  by  virtue  whereof  we  hold  our- 
selves strictly  tied  to  all  care  of  each  other's  good  and  of 
the  whole  "  ?  Let  us  never  forget  the  deep  and  solemn  im- 
port of  these  words.  The  problem  before  us  is  to  make  a 
whole  of  our  many  discordant  parts,  our  many  foreign  ele- 
ments ;  and  I  know  of  no  way  in  which  this  can  better  be 
done  than  by  providing  a  common  system  of  education,  and 
a  common  door  of  access  to  the  best  books  by  which  that 
education  may  be  continued,  broadened,  and  made  fruitful. 
For  it  is  certain  that,  whatever  we  do  or  leave  undone, 
those  discordant  parts  and  foreign  elements  are  to  be, 
whether  we  will  or  no,  members  of  that  body  which  Rob- 


14         WET  DO    WE   NEED   A  PUBLIC  LIBRARY* 

inson  and  Brewster  had  in  mind,  bone   of  our  bone,  and 
flesh  of  our  flesh,  for  good  or  ill.  .  .  . 

There  is  no  way  in  which  a  man  can  build  so  secure  and 
lasting  a  monument  for  himself  as  in  a  public  hbrary. 
Upon  that  he  may  confidently  allow  "  Resurgam  "to  be 
carved,  for,  through  his  good  deed,  he  will  rise  again  in  the 
grateful  remembrance  and  in  the  lifted  and  broadened 
minds  and  fortified  characters  of  generation  after  gener- 
ation. The  pyramids  may  forget  their  builders,  but  me- 
morials such  as  this  have  longer  memories. 

THE  LIBRARY  AND  CULTURE. 
W.  I.  Fletcher. 

We  hear  much  of  the  library  as  a  part  of  the  educational 
apparatus  of  the  town  and  the  state.  Yes,  it  is  indeed  that, 
but  it  is  more  and  other  than  that.  To  my  mind  it  should 
stand  for  culture  rather  "than  education  in  the  narrow  sense  ; 
and  culture,  it  is  now  coming  to  be  recognized,  is  to  be  had 
through  recreation,  as  well  as  through  tasks  and  through 
study.  An  article  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  takes  the 
ground  that  all  education  up  to  high  school  age  should  con- 
sist of  gymnastics,  music,  manual  training,  free-hand  draw- 
ing, and  language,  mainly  English,  possibly  a  little  French. 
This  proposed  "new  programme  in  education,"  as  the 
writer  calls  it,  while  it  is  too  radical  to  meet  acceptance  at 
present,  is  in  a  line  with  much  of  the  thought  of  the  day, 
which  recognizees  the  cultural  value  of  the  aesthetic  and  the 
pleasurable. 

There  is  nothing  out  of  place  in  the  comparing  of  the 
library  to  the  school  and  the  college,  but  its  true  mission  is 
not  to  be  so  limited.  To  a  large  extent  it  is  to  be  compared, 
as  an  object  of  public  care  and  expense,  with  the  park,  the 
modern  common,  where  there  are  flower-beds,  rare  plants  in 
conservatories,  lakes  with  boats  in  summer  and  skating  in 
winter,  and  music  by  excellent  bands.     Not  very  strictly 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED    A   PUBLIC   LIBRARY f        15 

useful,  these  things,  but  recognized  everywhere  as  minister- 
ing to  the  real  culture  of  the  people.  Let  this  library,  then, 
be  the  place  where  you  will  come  not  merely  to  study  and 
store  your  minds  with  so-called  "  useful  "  knowledge,  but 
also  often  to  have  a  good  time ;  to  refresh  your  minds  and 
hearts  with  humor  and  poetry  and  fiction.  Let  the  boys 
find  here  wholesome  books  of  adventure,  and  tales  such  as 
a  boy  likes ;  let  the  girls  find  the  stories  which  delight 
them  and  give  their  fancy  and  imagination  exercise  ;  let  the 
tired  housewife  find  the  novels  which  will  transport  her  to 
an  ideal  realm  of  love  and  happiness  ;  let  the  hard-worked 
man,  instead  of  being  expected  always  to  read  "  improv- 
ing "  books  of  history  or  politics,  choose  that  which  will 
give  him  relaxation  of  mind  and  nerve,  —  perhaps  the  Inno- 
cents Abroad,  or  Josh  Billings's  "  AUminax,"  or  Samanthy 
at  Saratoga. 

THE  LIBKARY'S  EDUCATIONAL  MISSION. 
Melvil  Dewey. 

The  librarian'' s  educational  viotto.  —  To  the  great  mass 
of  boys  and  girls  the  school  can  barely  give  the  tools  with 
which  to  get  an  education  after  they  are  forced  to  begin 
their  life  work  as  breadwinners.  Few  are  optimistic  enough 
to  hope  that  we  can  change  this  condition  very  rapidly. 
The  great  problem  of  the  day  is,  therefore,  to  carry  on  the 
education  after  the  elementary  steps  have  been  taken  in  the 
free  public  schools.  There  are  numerous  agencies  at  work 
in  this  direction,  —  reading  rooms,  reference  and  lending 
libraries,  museums,  summer,  vacation  and  night  schools, 
correspondence  and  other  forms  of  extension  teaching  ;  but 
by  far  the  greatest  agent  is  good  reading.  An  educational 
system  which  contents  itself  with  teaching  to  read  and  then 
fails  to  see  that  the  best  reading  is  provided,  when  unde- 
sirable reading  is  so  cheap  and  plentiful  as  to  be  a  con- 
stant menace  to  the  public  good,  is,  as  Huxley  wisely  said, 


16         WHY  no    WE  NEED   A  PUBLIC  LIBRARY* 

as  inconsistent  and  absurd  as  to  teach  our  children  the 
expert  use  of  the  knife,  fork,  and  spoon,  and  then  provide 
them  with  no  food.  The  most  important  movement  before 
the  professional  educators  to-day  is  the  broadening  going 
on  so  rapidly  in  their  conception  of  their  duties  to  their  pro- 
fession and  to  the  public.  Too  many  have  thought  of  their 
work  as  limited  'to  schools  for  the  young  during  a  short 
period  of  tuition.  The  true  conception  is  that  we  should 
be  responsible  for  higher  as  well  as  elementary  educa- 
tion, for  adults  as  well  as  for  cliildren,  for  educational 
work  in  the  homes  as  well  as  in  the  schoolhouses,  and  dur- 
ing life  as  well  as  for  a  limited  course.  In  a  nutshell,  the 
motto  of  the  extended  work  should  be  "  higher  education 
for  adults,  at  home,  during  life." 

THE  FREEDOM  OF  BOOKS. 

J.  N.  Lamed. 

The  free  town  library  is  wholly  a  product  of  the  last 
half-century.  It  is  the  crowning  creature  of  democracy  for 
its  own  higher  culture.  There  is  notliing  conceivable  to 
surpass  it  as  an  agency  in  popular  education.  Schools, 
colleges,  lectures,  classes,  clubs,  and  societies,  scientific  and 
literary,  are  tributaries  to  it,  —  primaries,  feeders.  It  takes 
up  the  work  of  all  of  them  to  utilize  it,  to  carry  it  on,  and 
make  more  of  it.  Future  time  will  perfect  it,  and  wiU 
perfect  the  institutions  out  of  which  and  over  which  it  has 
grown ;  but  it  is  not  possible  for  the  future  to  bring  any 
new  gift  of  enlightenment  to  men  that  will  be  greater,  in 
kind,  than  the  free  diffusion  of  thought  and  knowledge  as 
stored  in  the  better  literature  of  the  world. 

The  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  would  seem  to 
be  a  late  time  in  history  for  realizing  the  freedom  of  books. 
For  if  we  consider,  we  must  see  that  there  is  no  earthly 
thing,  except  the  solid  earth  itself,  and  its  waters  and  its 
air,  that  is  so  truly  and  plainly  a  common  heritage  of  man- 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRAE Y?         17 

kind  as  the  matter  of  tlie  books  that  have  come  down  from 
past  times.  If  there  were  heritable  rights  in  the  whole  i)ub- 
lic  to  some  great  store  of  bodily  food,  and  they  were  half 
as  clear  as  its  heirship  to  these  meats  of  the  spirit  and  the 
mind,  we  may  be  sure  that  its  claim  to  them  would  never 
have  slept  so  long.  Suppose  that  in  every  generation  there 
had  been  given  to  a  few  men  and  women  some  endowment 
of  extraordinary  power,  which  perpetuated  life  without  de- 
cay and  fruitfulness  without  ceasing  in  each  seed  and  root 
that  was  put  into  the  earth  by  their  hands,  so  that  harvests 
from  their  sowing  were  perennial  to  the  end  of  time,  and 
that  people  to-day  were  gathering  grapes  from  vines  that 
had  ripened  in  the  days  of  Pharaohs  !  Can  we  doubt  that 
such  a  cumulative  ancestral  gift  as  that  would  have  been 
made  common  property,  with  equal  free  sharing,  long  ages 
ago  ?  But  the  nature  of  our  literary  inheritance  from  the 
past  is  exactly  that.  The  true  literature  that  we  garner  in 
our  libraries  of  books  is  the  deatldess  thought,  the  immortal 
truth,  the  imperishable  quickenings  and  revelations  which 
genius  —  the  rare  gift  to  now  and  then  one  of  the  human 
race  —  has  been  frugally,  steadily  planting  in  the  fertile 
soil  of  written  speech,  from  the  generations  of  the  hymn- 
writers  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Indus  to  the  generations 
now  alive.  As  I  look  at  it,  there  is  nothing  save  the  air  we 
breathe  that  we  have  conmion  rights  in  so  sacred  and  so 
clear,  and  there  is  no  other  public  treasure  which  so  reason- 
ably demands  to  be  kept  and  cared  for  and  distributed  for 
common  enjoyment  at  common  cost. 

If  we  marvel  at  the  tardiness  with  wliich  even  the  fore- 
most peoples  have  recognized  their  literary  inheritance,  and 
the  common  rights  and  duties  attaching  to  it,  we  do  but 
rejoice  the  more  that  they  have  come  to  the  recognition  at 
last.  In  my  belief  it  is  the  keystone  now  slipping  to  its 
place  in  the  slowly  rounded  arch  of  our  modern  civilization. 
Free  education  and  free  books  in  a  free  democracy,  —  that 
is  the  system  of  an  enduring  social  structure.     The  futm'e 


18         WHY  DO    WE  NEED  A   PUBLIC  LIBRARY? 

may  put  carvings  of  wonderful  beauty  upon  our  arch,  and 
build  temples  and  palaces  and  towers  that  rise  to  heaven 
upon  it ;  but  what  we  do  now  is  the  work  that  will  have 
given  solidity  and  security  to  the  whole. 

Free  corn  in  old  Rome  bribed  a  mob  and  kept  it  passive. 
By  free  books  and  what  goes  with  them  in  modern  America 
we  mean  to  erase  the  mob  from  existence.  There  lies  the 
cardinal  difference  between  a  civilization  which  perished 
and  a  civilization  that  will  endure. 

THE  LIBKAKY  FOE  RECREATION. 

Sir  Walter  Besant. 

The  public  library  is  an  adult  school ;  it  is  a  perpetual 
and  lifelong  continuation  class;  it  is  the  greatest  educa- 
tional factor  that  we  have  ;  and  the  librarian  is  becoming 
our  most  important  teacher  and  guide.  The  dream  of  the 
Heavy  Moralist  is  that  in  opening  a  free  library  you  are 
persuading  the  workingman  to  become  a  student  in  sci- 
ence, history,  or  language.  He  himself,  if  you  please  (the 
Heavy  Moralist),  goes  every  day  to  his  office  and  does  six 
hours  of  work,  broken  by  a  lunch  which  occupies  an  hour. 
He  then  goes  home,  dines  at  half  past  seven,  and  spends  the 
evening  with  a  little  music,  a  little  game  of  cards,  a  little 
light  reading,  a  little  talk.  His  sons  do  the  same.  Does 
he  expect  his  sons  to  spend  their  evenings  in  learning  quan- 
tities of  fine  things,  all  for  the  pure  love  of  knowledge  ? 
Certainly  not.  Yet  he  will  talk  glibly  about  the  working- 
man,  who  has  had  a  nine  hours'  day  of  hard  work,  taking 
advantage  of  the  free  library  for  purposes  of  self-im- 
provement. This  is  not  hypocrisy  :  it  is  stupidity.  What 
the  average  workingman  wants  is  exactly  what  the  Heavy 
Moralist  and  his  sons  want,  —  an  evening  of  quiet  rest  and 
recreation,  —  and  if  he  finds  it  in  the  company  of  Walter 
Scott,  Dickens,  Marryatt,  Thackeray,  Fielding,  Smollett, 
Defoe,  Wilkie  Collins,  Charles  Reade,  George  Eliot,  not  to 
«peak  of  living  men  and  women,  should  we  not  rejoice  ? 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC   LIBRARY?        19 

WHY  MR.  CARNEGIE  FOUNDS  FREE  LIBRARIES. 

Andrew  Carnegie. 

I  choose  free  libraries  as  the  best  agencies  for  improving 
the  masses  of  the  people,  because  they  give  nothing  for 
nothing.  They  only  help  those  who  help  themselves. 
They  never  pauperize.  They  reach  the  aspiring,  and 
open  to  these  the  chief  treasures  of  the  world  —  those 
stored  up  in  books.  A  taste  for  reading  drives  out  lower 
tastes. 

Besides  this,  I  believe  good  fiction  one  of  the  most  bene- 
ficial reliefs  to  the  monotonous  lives  of  the  poor.  For 
these  and  other  reasons  I  prefer  the  free  public  library  to 
most  if  not  any  other  agencies  for  the  happiness  and  im- 
provement of  a  community. 

THE  MODERN  LIBRARY  MOVEMENT. 

Joseph  LeRoy  Harrison. 

And  now  what  is  the  modern  library  movement  ?  What 
is  its  moving  thought,  its  scope,  its  purpose,  its  aspirations  ? 
The  modern  library  movement  is  a  movement  to  increase  by 
every  possible  means  the  accessibility  of  books,  to  stimulate 
their  reading,  and  to  create  a  demand  for  the  best.  Its 
motive  is  helpfulness  ;  its  scope,  instruction  and  recreation ; 
its  purpose,  the  enlightenment  of  all ;  its  aspirations,  still 
greater  usefulness.  It  is  a  distinctive  movement,  because  it 
recognizes,  as  never  before,  the  infinite  possibilities  of  the 
public  library,  and  because  it  has  done  everything  within 
its  power  to  develop  those  possibilities. 

Among  the  peculiar  relations  that  a  library  sustains  to 
a  community,  which  the  movement  has  made  clear  and 
greatly  advanced,  are  its  relations  to  the  school  and  uni- 
versity extension.  The  education  of  an  individual  is  coinci- 
dent with  the  life  of  that  individual.  It  is  carried  on  by 
the  influences  and  appliances  of  the  family,  vocation,  gov- 


20  WHl?   DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARY? 

ernment,  the  church,  the  press,  the  school,  and  the  library. 
The  library  is  unsectarian,  and  hence  occupies  a  field  inde- 
pendent of  the  church.  It  furnishes  a  foundation  for  an 
intelligent  reading  of  paper  and  magazine.  It  is  the  com- 
plement and  supplement  of  the  school,  cooperating  with 
the  teacher  in  the  work  of  educating  the  child,  and  fur- 
nishing the  means  for  continuing  that  education  after  the 
child  has  gone  out  from  the  school.  These  are  important 
relations.  From  the  beginning  the  child  is  taught  the 
value  of  books.  In  the  kindergarten  period  he  learns  that 
they  contain  beautiful  pictures  ;  in  the  grammar  grades 
they  do  much  to  make  liistory  and  geography  attractive  ;  in 
the  high  school  they  are  indispensable  as  works  of  reference. 

Few  of  those  who  enter  the  public  schools  become  aca- 
demic pupils,  but  they  have  been  taught  to  read,  and  are 
graduated  into  the  world  in  possession  of  a  power  of 
almost  infinite  possibilities.  It  is  as  the  means  by  which 
that  power  may  be  developed  that  the  supplemental  work 
of  the  library  begins.  Were  it  not  for  the  library,  the 
education  of  the  masses  would,  in  most  cases,  cease  when 
the  doors  of  the  school  swing  in  after  them  for  the  last 
time ;  but  it  keeps  those  doors  wide  open,  and  is,  in  the 
truest  sense  of  the  word,  the  university  of  the  people.  The 
library  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  educational  system  of  a 
community  as  the  public  school,  and  is  coming  more  and 
more  to  be  regarded  with  the  same  respect  and  sujjported  in 
the  same  generous  manner.  It  is  not  necessary  to  consider 
here  the  means  which  have  been  employed  to  increase  the 
usefulness  of  the  library  in  this  respect ;  but  'sufficient  to 
say  that  it  is  constantly  increasing,  that  librarians  are  fully 
alive  to  this  function  of  the  library,  and  their  efforts  are 
being  ably  seconded  by  all  educators. 

The  relation  of  the  library  to  university  extension  is  per- 
haps even  closer  than  its  relation  to  the  public  school,  for 
its  character  makes  it  the  most  natural  local  centre  of  this 
form  of  education,  and  often  its  organizing  force.  .  .  . 


WHY  DO    WE   NEED   A   PUBLIC  LIBRARY*        2l 

To-day  the  relation  between  the  library  and  university 
extension  is  firmly  established,  and  in  a  natural  stage  of 
development.  With  its  class  rooms  and  lectiu-e  rooms,  its 
books  and  its  reference  lists,  its  intelligent  librarian  and  stu- 
dious atmosphere,  the  library  provides  university  extension 
with  an  attractive  and  appropriate  home ;  and  university 
extension,  on  its  part,  furnishes  the  library  with  that  which 
it  most  covets,  an  added  constituency. 

These  are  but  two  of  the  many  ways  by  which  the  public 
library  is  endeavoring  to  serve  the  public.  The  modern 
library  spirit  has  found  within  the  expansive  walls  of  the 
institution  possibilities  which  half  a  century  ago  were  not 
even  dreamed  of,  and  is  directing  all  its  energy  to  finding 
the  means  of  realizing  these  possibilities.  .  .  . 

The  public  library  of  to-day  is  an  active,  potential  force, 
serving  the  present,  and  silently  helping  to  develop  the 
civilization  of  the  future.  The  spirit  of  the  modern  library 
movement  which  surrounds  it  is  thoroughly  catholic,  thor- 
ouglily  progressive,  and  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the 
people.  It  believes  that  the  true  function  of  the  library 
is  to  serve  the  people,  and  that  the  only  test  of  success  is 
usefulness. 


Electrotyped  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  if  Co- 
Carnbridge,  Mass,  U.S.  A. 


Small  Series 

Books  for  Boys  and  Girls,  by  Caroline  M.  Hewins. 
New  edition,  enlarged.  Paper,  15  cents.  15.00  per 
100. 

List  of  Books  for  Girls  and  Women  and  their 
Clubs.     5  parts.    Each,  5  cents. 

Also  issued  iu  the  larger  series  in  one  volume. 

List  of  French  Fiction,  by  Mnie.  Sophie  Cornu  and 
William  Beer.    Paper,  5  cents. 

Card  Publications 

1.  Catalog  cards  for  current  periodical  publications. 

2.  Catalog  cards  for  various  sets  of  periodicals  and  for 

books  of  composite  authorship. 

3.  Catalog  cards  for  current  books  in  English  and 

American  History,  with      notations. 

4.  Catalog    cards  for  curre  bliographical  publi- 

cations. 

For  detailefl  information  in  regard  he  card  publications,  apply 
directly  to  the  Publishing  Board  of  xiericau  Library  Association, 

34  Newbury  Street.  Boston,  Mass. 

Library  Iracts 

1.  Why  do  we  need  a  Public  Library? 

2.  How  to  start  a  Public  Library,  by  Dr.  G.  E.  Wire. 

3.  Traveling  Libraries,  by  F.  A.  Hutchins. 

4.  Library  Rooms  and  Buildings,  by  C.  C.  Soule. 

11.00  per  100 

5.  Notes  from  the  Art  Section  of  a  Library,  by  C.  A. 

Cutter.    5  cents  each,  12.00  per  100. 

Library  Handbooks 

1.  Essentials  in  Library  Administration,  a  manual 

of  administrative  detail,  by  L.  E.  Steams.    103 
pages.    15  cents  each,  15.00  per  100. 

2.  Cataloguing    for    Small    Libraries,    by    Theresa 

Hitchler.   15  cents  each,  15.00  per  100. 


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